The motionless figure at the periscope gave a couple of low-voiced orders, and in the ensuing silence Sir William felt the artery in his throat quicken and beat like a piston. Then—
"Fire!"
The boat rolled to port, and all her framework shook like the body of a man shaken by a sudden sob. Back she came to her original trim, and the Lieutenant, standing by the beam tube, raised his wrist watch and studied it intently. The seconds passed, throbbing, intolerable, and merged into Eternity. A sudden concussion seemed to strike the boat from bow to stern, and as she steadied the motionless figures, standing expressionless at their stations, suddenly sprang into life and action.
There was the metallic sound of metal striking metal as the hatchway opened, a rush of cool, sweet air, and the Scientist found himself beside the two officers, without the slightest recollection of how he got there, standing in the wind and sunlight on the streaming platform of the conning-tower. The boat was heading with the waves tumbling away on either side of them in the direction of a cloud of grey smoke that still hung over the water, slowly dissolving in the wind. As they approached a dark patch of oil spread outwards from a miniature maelstrom where vast bubbles heaved themselves up and broke; the air was sickly with the smell of benzoline, and mingled with it were the acrid fumes of gas and burnt clothing. A dark scum gathered in widening circles, with here and there the white belly of a dead fish catching the sun: a few scraps of wreckage went by, but no sign of a man or what had once been a man.
"Pretty shot," said the First Lieutenant approvingly, and leaned over the rail to superintend the dropping of a sinker and buoy. The Commanding Officer said nothing. Beneath the tan his face was white, and his hand, as he raised his glasses to sweep the horizon, trembled slightly.
The Yeoman of Signals turned to Sir William and jerked his thumb at the water. "Eh!" he said soberly, "yon had a quick call!"
"I ask for no other when my hour strikes," replied the Scientist.
"Maybe juist yeer hands are clean," said the Yeoman, and turned to level his telescope at the trawler which was rapidly approaching with a cloud of smoke reeling from her funnel and the waves breaking white across her high bows.
"Here comes Gedge," observed the Lieutenant-Commander, speaking for the first time, "foaming at the mouth and suffering from the reaction of fright. Hark! He's started talking…."
Amid the cluster of figures in the trawler's bow stood a big man with a megaphone to his mouth. The wind carried scraps of sentences across the water.